Last but not least...

Last week Ben and I lost the last of our ferrets, Tiny Weasel (a.k.a. Madame Weaselle, Little Miss Weasel). She started out as a mean little ferret, jumping out from behind furniture to nip our ankles. I blame the kennel where she spent the early part of her life. As she grew older, she mellowed and become a wonderful little weasel. Eventually, she became the sweetest of them all, and in her dotage spend many happy hours on my lap getting her ears scratched. She also briefly became my office weasel, and would come in about once a day to beg for a raisin.

Tiny had numerous bizarre yet appealing habits. She loved stealing the recycling from the bin and spent much of her ferret childhood trying to cram one-gallon milk jugs into three-inch diameter ferret tubing without much success. For reasons unknown, she predominately moved backwards, and would sometimes scurry backwards across the entire kitchen floor when you only so much as glanced at her. She also had several "stations" throughout her life: places, typically next to a refrigerator or recycling bin, from where she would stare out in a vapid yet endearing fashion. In North Branford, we stuck a Post-it note titled "Tiny's Station" on the base of the fridge next to the spot where she liked to stand and watch the kitchen proceedings.

Despite being the smallest, most fragile-appearing ferret, Tiny was remarkably stoic, a fact that allowed her to enjoy camping trips. She loved digging for moles under picnic tables and taking naps in our sleeping bag. She will be much missed.

I'll leave you with a classic Tiny Weasel pose:

May, 2007

May, 2012

It's National Novel Writing Month...

And wow, am I behind... Gotta fix this.

Goodbye, Ichabod

Ben and I lost another ferret earlier this week: Ichabod, a.k.a. The Great White Weasel:

He was our "special" ferret, by which I mean he wasn't in the gifted and talented weasel group, but we loved him all the same. It's been barely a month since we lost Rocky, so the apartment is getting mighty empty with just Tiny Weasel hanging on.

Ichabod had a legion of stuffed animal buddies who he would bring food, take on walks around the apartment, and also use as pillows. His favorite pursuits included scratching at the bedroom door, followed closely by getting into the bedroom, where he would run around like a maniac at being in the "forbidden room."

His most famous moment was emptying the entire contents of a litter box over our bathroom floor in North Branford, and then planting his stuffed monkey in the wreckage. This was immortalized in a photo called "The Monkey Did It":

We'll never forgot Ichabod's enthusiasm for life. There's nothing he loved more than the most boring of foods, Marshall's dry ferret food. Whenever anything is particularly awesome, Ben and I still refer to it as being "totally Marshall's" in honor of Ichabod.

Here are a few classic Ichabod shots:

Connecticut Adventures

Apparently Connecticut becomes much more beautiful if you leave it for a year. I didn't think I missed it until I visited--good times with friends, camping at Hammonasset (despite torrential downpours), and seeing my family (including some visitors from abroad and out-of-state) all made it a wonderful time.

Below are my cousin Peter and his wife Michelle who came as surprise visitors from England, Ben's parents Cam and Greg, my brother with his wife Rose and baby Arthur, and my mom and dad.

It was a short visit, but I was lucky to be able to see most of my friends. Jess came down from Hudson to camp at Hammonasset with me, Evan drove down from Northampton for a day, and Justin and Beth made a point to see me at every chance they got. Jess and I even caught up with Andy Erickson, a friend from high school who we hadn't seen in over a decade! Below are Justin, Andy, Beth, and Jess on the beach at Hammonasset.

Notable events: a Hammo evening spent with Jess, Eric, Joe, Becca, and Andrea; a throw-back Guilford Diner breakfast with Jess, Eric, Andrea, Ashley and her boyfriend Billy; spending a night on the beach talking with Justin and Beth (until we were kicked off the beach); eating delicious Taste of China with my co-workers from Shore Pub; breakfast with my mom at Edd's in Westbrook; tasty Thai with Kate, Justin, and Beth in Middletown; a tag sale at my parents' home with my brother, Rose, and Arthur; Bella Lisa's buffalo chicken pizza and a day spent talking with Evan and hiking the Branford Supply Ponds; visiting Eric's new digs in Derby with more friends than I can count! Sometimes I wish I had the ability to teleport all my friends and family to Oregon... I miss you guys.

Freedom of the Internet

Ben and I have gone on a few hikes recently; I did a short backpacking trip to Rosary Lakes, we went camping on the coast, and we hiked up Iron Mountain. However, instead of posting photos of sand dunes and trees, I've instead decided to post a whole bunch of photos of Rocky Weasel because I miss him and because it's the Internet and we're allowed to post whatever we wish:

Goodbye, Rocky

Ben and I lost a big piece of ourselves last week--Rocky Weasel. Born in September, 2005 and originally from a pet store in Hudson, New York, Rocky (along with myself) had the misfortune to live with my ex-boyfriend Geoff for the early portion of his life. When I came back from a caretaker gig in the Vermont wilderness, I liberated Rocky W., along with his cohorts Little Miss (aka Tiny Weasel) and Ichabod from the kennel where he'd left them. They came to live with me and Ben in New Haven, Connecticut in December, an event that shall forever be remembered as the infamous Weasel Christmas of 2006.
Mistrustful from being abandoned, Rocky had quite the fierce bite when we first acquired him. Eventually, he learned to trust us--becoming the sweetest, smartest pet I've ever known. Rocky picked up tricks easily, became a rock star on YouTube, and accompanied us on many adventures, including our cross-country move to Oregon. He has partied like a rock star at a New Orleans hotel during Mardi Gras, taken in sweeping views of the Grand Canyon, and pooped in the corners of countless La Quinta hotels across the continental United States. Despite the YouTube fame of his "Up" trick, far more impressive was his ability to roll on command, known locally in our household as "Rocky, Roll." A holdover from our aquarist days in Connecticut, he had a sweet tooth for algae wafers and would perform his trick the second he smelled the treat.
More important, Rocky was a real little person. He had the ability to look you in the eye, fret when Ben or I was gone, and, I think, to love us, too. We'll miss you, Rocky Weasel.

Rocky Weasel (Sept., 2005 - July, 2012)

Ben's Birthday at Fall Mountain Lookout

For Ben's birthday, we rented a Forest Service fire tower on top of a mountain in eastern Oregon for two nights. It was amazing! The tower was outfitted with a stove, a futon, a fridge--all the comforts of home packed into a room about the size of my office, with windows all around looking out over the mountains:

Here's the fire tower from the outside:

Bringing the ferret cage up the narrow stairs was pretty exciting... as was the drive up many miles of steep gravel Forest Service roads. We sectioned off part of the room for our ferrets and then baked a shepherd's pie our first night out. The next day, we drove out to the Painted Hills, which pretty much beat all my expectations for it. Here are a few photos to give you an idea:

It was probably the most alien-looking landscape I've ever seen; it looked computer-generated. We spent most of the day hiking around the hills, then drove back to the cabin to check on the ferrets (who seemed to enjoy the vacation). Later, Ben and I went out for a meal at the Snaffle Bit restaurant in John Day. The place looked like a dive from the outside, but when they realized that we didn't have a reservation, the waitress placed us in a separate room with seating for six and a chandelier--absurdly fancy, but appropriate for Ben's birthday! Dinner was perfect, then back to the cabin for a spectacular sunset.

It was a great vacation! I am definitely looking forward to booking more Forest Service cabins in the future--they have a whole series of fire towers in Oregon and Washington that you can rent out in the mountains for about $40 a night. Plus, ours came complete with a great set of binoculars, through which Ben spotted our first mountain blue bird. We'll be back, Fall Mountain Lookout!